Holy oil won't help Children's Board of Hillsborough gain traction

Do you trust an agency head who thought having her office anointed with holy oil would help resolve tensions with board members? The actions of Luanne Panacek, CEO of the Children's Board of Hillsborough County, may seem harmless to some, but the agency needed stability as it reformulates how it funds nonprofit social service agencies. Her actions and the adverse publicity do the exact opposite. It'll be up to the board to define the actions, but if I was Panacek, I would say a prayer. …

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson says he has the answer to higher gas prices. Nelson, a Democrat from Melbourne, and Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., are pushing a bill that would "drastically limit the ability of speculators to artificially drive up energy prices." Nelson contends that since the government deregulated oil traders in 2000, speculators have pushed prices beyond the norm.

I couldn't agree more, but if Nelson can get this bill passed in an election year, I'll fill his gas tanks for a month. …

Seen on a bumper sticker: Elvis, If You're Out There We Will Find You. USCG Search And Rescue. …

A 2012 Harley-Davidson Iron 883 will be among the items up for grabs when the Pinellas Education Foundation holds its annual auction Friday at the Mahaffey Theater. Organizers hope to draw folks who plan to be downtown for First Friday festivities. For tickets, go to www.pinellaseducation.org. …

I stumbled upon Mozilla Firefox after Facebook told me my current browser was outdated. I excitedly told my young colleagues, and they just looked and said, "You're suppose to be on Google Chrome." Sigh. At this rate, I'll never catch up. Where's my flip phone? And what's Pinterest?

PINELLAS PARK — The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office late Saturday said detectives arrested a 14-year-old boy and accused him of posting a threat to a school on his Snapchat account.Edward Charles Osgood, who attends Lealman Innovation Academy, was a...

1. Was editor of her high school newspaper, president of her 4-H club.2. Started stripping at age 17 in Baton Rouge, La.3. Made her first porn film with a girlfriend.4. Took her stage name from the Motley Crue bassist, who named his son Storm, and fr...

MUNICH — President Donald Trump’s national security adviser said Saturday there was "incontrovertible" evidence of a Russian plot to disrupt the 2016 U.S. election, a blunt statement that shows how significantly the new criminal charges leveled by an...

A prominent Republican political donor demanded on Saturday that the party pass legislation to restrict access to guns, and vowed not to contribute to any candidates or electioneering groups that did not support a ban on the sale of military-style fi...

ST. PETERSBURG — A red heart-shaped balloon rose above crowd of several hundred people that had gathered at Williams Park on Saturday evening to mourn Wednesday’s school shooting in Broward County and to protest gun violence.Below the balloon, signs ...

TAMPA — Leonard Bernstein would have turned 100 this year. The Florida Orchestra performed two of his works Friday, the second of which paired the dances from West Side Story with the overture to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet.The orches...

TAMPA — In the center of the nightclub, between the cigar case and bustling bar, a giant screen blankets the back wall. Usually, ads for drink specials and coming attractions scroll across.But Friday night, a life-size picture of President Donald Tru...

TAMPA — Firefighters found a man dead inside a burned-down mobile home Saturday.Tampa Fire Rescue got a call just after 4:30 p.m. that a single-wide mobile home at the 100 block of East Linebaugh Avenue was in flames.The man’s identity was not releas...

Warning: This story quotes graphic material.Before he killed 17 people at a South Florida high school, Nikolas Cruz repeatedly threatened an ex-classmate who had started dating his former girlfriend, according to a report in Buzzfeed News."I’m going ...

TAMPA — Police found a dead man inside an apartment in the 5200 block of Sonora Court Friday after 3 p.m.Who the man is or how long he’s been dead is not yet clear, police said. The victim appears to have been killed in some sort of "homicidal violen...